‘Chickenshit’ attack enrages Netanyahu and lobby, but will it stir voters against Obama?

The report that a “senior” Obama administration official called Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu “a chickenshit” for destroying the peace process continues to roil the political and diplomatic waters. Here’s a wrapup of some commentary on the revelation, including Netanyahu’s defiant speech addressing “attack” from anonymous sources in the Obama administration yesterday:

our supreme interests, first and foremost security and the unity of Jerusalem, are not the top priority of those same anonymous sources that attack us and me personally.

The quotes are extremely concerning to the Israel lobby groups. The Jewish Federations leader calls the comments “outrageous.” While the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ Malcolm Hoenlein and Robert Sugarman leap on the quotes:

“We are deeply concerned by a number of recent public and private criticisms, personal insults and inappropriate characterizations emanating from official sources. These often anonymous, but no less harmful, declarations undermine the common interests of the United States and Israel on the critical issues which face both countries and the real extraordinary cooperation on the security, intelligence, political and other levels. It is the common efforts of these two great democratic allies to address the threat of Iran becoming a threshold nuclear state, the rise of ISIS and other extremist Islamist groups, the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Libya, and the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, among other issues of vital significance to both countries, that is of primary importance. It is only natural that there may be disagreements on issues, but we believe those should be discussed privately between the leaders of both countries and there should be no place for personal attacks which undermine mutual confidence and support so essential to advancing the interests of both the United States and Israel.

J Street agrees: “that such ad-hominem attacks have no place in relations between close allies.” Though it points out that many in D.C. were silent when Israeli officials criticized Obama administration officials; and besides, J Street says, the report points to the damage Israel has done with its “reckless” settlement policy.

Hewitt: What surprises me is that it’s a week before an election in which the Jewish vote might indeed make a difference in a place like Florida, or a Senate race like New Hampshire, or a Senate race in Colorado. And these are not large numbers of voters who are motivated primarily by the American-Israel relationship, but they’re not insignificant, either. And this President has done repeatedly over the last three weeks things that Democratic candidates must be banging their head….

JT: Well, I completely agree with you that Rick Scott and others in tight races, where there is a significant vote of people who support Israel, not just Jews, but Evangelicals, will be making huge hay out of that comment. And I bet it becomes a big issue in those Israel-supporting communities, absolutely.

Noah Pollack of Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel fingers Ben Rhodes for the comment, while Adam Horowitz issued a clever challenge to Rhodes:

“Aspergery” has concerned the Ruderman Family Foundation, an organization focused on “advancing the inclusion of people with disabilities throughout the Jewish community and fostering a more nuanced understanding of the American Jewish community among Israeli leaders”, which issued a statement condemning the administration for using that word as an insult:

“While it is perfectly acceptable for people to be critical of each other, it is unacceptable to use a term of disability in a derogatory manner. The term “Aspergery” was used in a manner that is insulting to the millions of people around the world with Asperger Syndrome. It is never OK to insult someone by referring to them by using disability in a negative manner.”

The comments were also seen as a threat to the Israel lobby. Netanyahu’s finance minister has used the flap to remind American Jews that Obama is no friend of Israel, and that they owe loyalty to that state:

If what is written is true, then the current administration intends to throw Israel under the bus….Israel is stronger than any disparager. The Prime Minister is not some private individual. He is the leader of the Jewish State and the Jewish world as a whole. Vulgar remarks directed against an Israeli Prime Minister are hurtful to the millions of citizens of Israel and Jews worldwide.

Netanyahu seems to believe this, too; he says that the U.S. and Israel have a “moral covenant.” Here are portions of his speech yesterday. Very defensive, angered by the anonymous sniping. Four times he refers to the “attack” on him.

When Israel is pressured to make concessions regarding its security, it is easiest to give in. We receive applause and attend ceremonies on lawns, but later the rockets and tunnels come.

As Prime Minister, I stand firm with regard to Israel’s security. I care about the lives of each and every citizen and each and every soldier. I have been on battlefields many times. I risked my life for this country, and I am not prepared to make concessions that will endanger it. And it must be understood, our supreme interests, first and foremost security and the unity of Jerusalem, are not the top priority of those same anonymous sources that attack us and me personally. I am being attacked only because I am protecting the State of Israel. If I did not protect the State of Israel, if I did not stand up decisively for our national and security interests, they would not attack me. And despite the attacks I face, I will continue to protect our country; I will continue to protect the citizens of Israel.

I would also like to add that I respect and appreciate our deep connection with the United States. Since the establishment of the country, we have had disagreements with the US and we will have disagreements in the future as well. However, they are not at the expense of the close relationship between our peoples and our countries. We have seen time and again, this year as well, that support for the State of Israel is ever increasing among the American public, and this support reached an all-time high. The strategic alliance and the moral covenant between our countries continues and will continue.

Netanyahu focused on the criticism that he destroyed the peace process by allowing settlements. But he seems to bridle at another aspect of Goldberg’s piece, the suggestion that he is chickenshit for not attacking Iran, which is Goldberg’s unprosecuted agenda of more than four years standing.

During the briefing at the State Department yesterday, Matt Lee of AP used the euphemism “chicken salad” to ask about the quote. State says it does not reflect U.S. leadership opinion:

Lee: I’ll try and keep this family-friendly by using the phrase “chicken salad” rather than the other word: What is going on here? Why are there senior Administration officials running around trashing the prime minister of Israel?

JEN PSAKI: Well, let me first say on your first question, even though it wasn’t a real question, the U.S.-Israel relationship remains strong, our security bonds have never been greater, and the ties between our nations are unshakeable. We remain fully and firmly committed to Israel’s security. On the comments, we think such comments are inappropriate and counterproductive. I spoke with Secretary – the Secretary about this this morning, and he certainly feels strongly that a war of words is not productive from either side. Obviously, we believe that moving forward, it’s in the best interests of both sides to address any issues that may arise appropriately and respectfully and not through personal attacks…

QUESTION: Are you trying to figure out – is the Administration trying to figure out who made these inappropriate and counterproductive comments?

MS. PSAKI: No….

QUESTION: Do you have any reason to believe that the comments attributed to the anonymous U.S. official were authorized?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t. No.

Jerry Slater brings the matter back to the political realities in the U.S., and the possibility of the comment reflecting if not affecting the vote. He writes at his blog that the comment actually reveals Obama’s cowardice, and his beholdenness to the Jewish community, and in turn the beholdenness of that Jewish community to rightwing Zionism:

[T]he real “political coward” is Obama, not Netanyahu. In this morning’s Haaretz, the indispensable (and amazingly courageous) Gideon Levy writes that the real political coward is Obama, who by abandoning the Palestinians and continuing all forms of support to Israel is going against his real views, whereas Netanyahu is at least acting according to his real views.

The problem with the argument that Obama is a political coward… is that it doesn’t address the other other level, which creates a terrible dilemma: it isn’t Obama that would suffer political consequences if he exercised real pressure on Israel, but the rest of us. Meaning that as long as a large majority of the American Jewish community will not support serious U.S. pressures on Israel, the electoral consequences of defying that community–i.e. losing Jewish money and votes–could be an even stronger Republican majority in Congress, for that matter even in a close Presidential election. And that’s not an Obama disaster, it’s our disaster.
The dilemma cannot be resolved without a major change in the views of the American Jewish community, which is why I have always regarded that community as the most important audience for critical analyses of Israeli policies.

Israel’s chickenshit PM is making hay over this, acting like a hurt little boy, and announcing he is under attack for “defending” Israel. How this man loves to show he is always falling on his sword for Israel, and if Israelis knew better they would realize he is the cause of many of their problems, with the rest of the world. What bothers me is how he keeps disrespecting the WH, and goes over the Presidents head, because on the other side his slaves in Congress are waiting eagerly to kiss his big ring and do his bidding, even if it means going against their own President AND country. The moment Congress shows less loyalty to this arrogant man, the more humble will his constant insult to the present occupant of the WH will be. Who can blame Obama for not liking this man, and how much of disrespect can he take, after all the constant announcements of illegal settlements increasing just before a meeting in the WH is the worst insult a President can keep taking, and the name calling by chickshit’s cabinet members for Kerry, Hagel, and the present WH, can be hard to take. But we keep taking it after all Israel is our greatest “ally” according to Congress, the media, and everyone under zio control.

He’s hurt enough to threaten the President of the U.S.! What else could he mean by the comment about ceremonies on “grassy knolls” we all know what happened from the grassy knoll as does Netanyahu. Seems like the secret service should investigate. Some say Kennedy was killed by Mossad, there are plenty of references to Mossad and Kennedy death.but this warning from Netanyahu certainly seems ominous.

“Speaking to the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – a few hours after the comments were revealed, Netanyahu angrily insisted he was “under attack simply for defending Israel”, adding that he “cherished” Israel’s relationship with the US.

“When there are pressures on Israel to concede its security, the easiest thing to do is to concede,” he said. “You get a round of applause, ceremonies on grassy knolls, and then come the missiles and the tunnels.””

He said it: “When there are pressures on Israel to concede its security, the easiest thing to do is to concede. You get a round of applause, ceremonies on grassy knolls, and then come the missiles and the tunnels.”

Bibi, who spent many years in the United States, is surely cognizant of what his “grassy knoll” reference connotes. You can argue it was just an infelicitous phrase, or that Bibi was referring to himself, not Obama. Maybe so. But what if, say, an Iranian official, even a low-ranking one, had said such a thing? The uproar would be deafening. And so the question must be asked: was Bibi threatening the President of the United States?
(From Antiwar web site, linking to Bibi’s speech)

Is it possible that the American public will begin to see Israel as part of the problem of the war-torn Middle East (rather than part of the USA or part of the “good and blessed” of the world)?

Whoever decided to knock Netanyahu either fired from the hip — spoke emotionally rather than politically — or had calculated (but was he right?) that claiming that Israel had frustrated Obama’s peace efforts [and later showing Obama kowtowing to AIPAC/BIG-ZION] will help Democrats in the elections 5 days off. (Some people not yet having voted.)

They truly deserve to be isolated and boycotted by the rest of the world. Of course, only the US will keep holding their hand and acting like their protector.
I wish they would take all their minions from here, including congress, and leave us alone.

“The Swedish government needs to understand that relations in the Middle East are more complicated than a piece of furniture from IKEA that you assemble at home, and should act with responsibility and sensitivity,” Lieberman added.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom responded to Lieberman’s IKEA comment. “I will be happy to send Israel FM Lieberman an IKEA flat pack to assemble. He’ll see it requires a partner, cooperation and a good manual,” she said.

“Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom responded to Lieberman’s IKEA comment. “I will be happy to send Israel FM Lieberman an IKEA flat pack to assemble. He’ll see it requires a partner, cooperation and a good manual,” she said.”

“The Swedish government officially recognised the state of Palestine today, the first western European country to do so.

Stockholm’s move reflects growing international exasperation over the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom said her government hoped it would bring a new dynamic to the situation.

“Our decision comes at a critical time because over the last year we have seen how the peace talks have stalled, how decisions over new settlements on occupied Palestinian land have complicated a two-state solution and how violence has returned to Gaza,” she said.

Perhaps in its reply, the Swedish government ought to mention Israel’s strange failure to prosecute Yehoshua Cohen, the man who was known to have assassinated Count Bernadotte (a member of the Swedish royal family) and in later years a close friend (and bodyguard) of Ben Gurion’s.

” The problem with the argument that Obama is a political coward—which at one level, as illustrated in my post yesterday, I obviously share—is that it doesn’t address the other other level, which creates a terrible dilemma: it isn’t Obama that would suffer political consequences if he exercised real pressure on Israel, but the rest of us.
Meaning that as long as a large majority of the American Jewish community will not support serious U.S. pressures on Israel, the electoral consequences of defying that community–i.e. losing Jewish money and votes–could be an even stronger Republican majority in Congress, for that matter even in a close Presidential election. And that’s not an Obama disaster, it’s our disaster.”……Slater

Trying to get to the bottom of Slater once again.

1) Obama is a coward because he wont exercise real pressure on Israel.
2) He wont exercise that pressure because the Dems would lose Jewish money and votes and that would be bad for America.
3) And the Dems would lose that money and vote because the bulk of the Jewish community won’t support stronger pressure on Israel.
4) And we would get Republican control of government which would be bad for Americans (or Jews).

So therefore US Isr policy and US elections are all up to the Jews.
And there will be ‘consequences’ to Americans in the form of the GOP for ‘defying’ the Jewish community.
Do I have this right?
Er…..so he’s saying American democracy has a ”Jewish problem” that only Jews can solve?

Slater made has made this same or similar argument before when he said don’t pressure the Dems on Israel or we might get dastardly republicans who would starve all America’s little children.

Yeah, the Democrats might suffer serious losses in the imminent election, but that’s short-term. In the long term, as Israel is more and more discredited, it will be those who have supported its crimes who will suffer politically.

If Slater’s worst case pans out it would be a good thing, imho. We would get a party that likes to stick it to the little guy AND which uncritically supports Israel financially, to the detriment of the vast majority of US voters.

I would be refreshing to see both anti-voter positions all bundled so neatly together in the GOP. They are political cousins after all. Throw in war-as-first-principle-using-OPKs and we might just have the beginnings of a campaign-able/votable distinction between the parties in US politics.

Dems could then get on with it and start making their/a beneficial case directly to long-ignored voters without having to so blatantly/exclusively kowtow to money interests. That would be neat.

So Israeli papers, reporting the anonymous comments Wednesday morning, had to settle on something less evocative than “chickenshit.” The consensus translation that emerged among major news sources was “pachdan,” or coward. Haaretz did a little better, using “pachdan aluv,” or “lowly coward.”

As any poultry farmer can attest, none of these are chickenshit. “Coward” lacks the crude, sandlot insult quality that “chickenshit” conveys. “Coward” is what you’d call someone before a duel. “Chickenshit” is what you’d call someone before a bar fight.

To compensate, Israeli news articles put the word, in English, in their articles, such that “chickenshit” is clearly visible in the opening paragraph, running counter to the Hebrew text.

A friend of mine suggested that Israeli reporters could have avoided all this by translating the phrase to Hebrew literally: “Hara shel tarnegolim.” Of course, that’s also not quite Hebrew: “Hara” is a swear word in Arabic.

By temporizing, by leaking and whining about Israel while continuing to support and enable its oppression of the Palestinians instead of openly confronting the issue, with an explanation to the American people to rally their support, obama has simply confirmed what we have long known: his own cowardly, amoral character.

“It is disgraceful, unacceptable, damaging, and I think neither President Obama nor I — I’ve never heard that word around me in the White House or anywhere,” said Kerry during an appearance at The Atlantic’s Ideas Forum on Thursday.

“I don’t know who these anonymous people are who keep getting quoted, but they make life much more difficult,” he added.

Israel claims authority over all Jewish person anywhere in the world. Bennett believes PM of Israel wields moral and political power .
Why conjure fear and disgust against some phony harebrained ideas of Khaliphate of IS type when we have one already running and dominating in ME ?

“The other day I was talking to a senior Obama administration official about the foreign leader who seems to frustrate the White House and the State Department the most. “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit,” this official said, referring to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by his nickname.

This comment is representative of the gloves-off manner in which American and Israeli officials now talk about each other behind closed doors,”

“This comment is representative“? Okay, then there’s no need to get too upset.

This is classic disinformation by Goldberg to rally the right wing base before the elections. While it may have been said the timing is designed to show Obama not to mess with Israel . But if one reads the comments from the reporting it may have backfired, excepting the hasbara trolls most comments have been affirmative. People are sick of israel

Okay, supposedly the “chickenshit” comment is a quote from an anonymous official, right. And then there’s the “running list” Goldberg gave, no context, no dates, no names.
How the hell can anybody get all excited about that? I must have missed the part where Goldberg had any kind of evidence to back up what he says.

RE: “While it is perfectly acceptable for people to be critical of each other, it is unacceptable to use a term of disability in a derogatory manner. The term “Aspergery” was used in a manner that is insulting to the millions of people around the world with Asperger Syndrome. It is never OK to insult someone by referring to them by using disability in a negative manner.” ~ Ruderman Family Foundation

MY COMMENT: I wonder if the Ruderman Family Foundation will also “take issue” with blacks being told: ‘Take your Ebola ass and get out [of the US]’? Enquiring minds mimes want to know!™

RE: “What surprises me is that it’s a week before an election in which the Jewish vote might indeed make a difference in a place like Florida, or a Senate race like New Hampshire, or a Senate race in Colorado. And these are not large numbers of voters who are motivated primarily by the American-Israel relationship, but they’re not insignificant, either.” ~ the insufferable Hugh Hewitt

WHAT DOESN’T SURPRISE ME: That the chickensh*t leak occurred too late to affect fundraising! ! !

National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice hosted Israeli National Security Advisor Yossi Cohen and senior Israeli and U.S. officials today at the White House for the semi-annual meeting of the U.S.-Israel Consultative Group. These ongoing constructive and intensive meetings cover a range of bilateral and regional security issues.

The delegations discussed pressing issues, including ongoing efforts by the United States and coalition partners to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL.

On Iran, the U.S. delegation reaffirmed our commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The two sides discussed the ongoing diplomatic efforts of the P5+1 and EU to reach a comprehensive solution that peacefully and verifiably resolves the international community’s concerns with Iran’s program. The delegations pledged to continue the unprecedented coordination between the United States and Israel as negotiations continue.

The U.S. delegation included CIA Director John Brennan, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James Winnefeld, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary of the Treasury David Cohen, Under Secretary of Defense Christine Wormuth, Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East Phil Gordon and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro.

National Security Advisors Rice and Cohen agreed that the U.S.-Israel Consultative Group continues to be an effective forum for strategic interagency security consultations between the U.S. and Israeli Governments and will continue to meet regularly in Washington and Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera America has a tv show tonight at 10EST devoted to the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, back in 1967. I don’t know how many of you have read up on this incident, but it is very controversial and long kept from the general public–as controversial as official explanations of JFK murder and 9/11.

The day before Al Jazeera America was scheduled to broadcast the documentary, “The Day Iasrael Attacked America” (a documentary about the USS Liberty), Abe Foxman was complaining that the above cartoon of Bibi flying a plane into an American building was anti-Semitic. Which do you think got covered in the media?

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